ive needs, and is glad to superintend changes of which he had felt the need. A laundry, separate from the other buildings, would be a great improvement. A system of separate care of children is desirable.

The appointments of officers are many of them for too short a period. In the asylum, the appointment of ward-keepers should be in the hands of the physician or head steward and matron. While the asylum has many admirable features, it is open to criticism in the male department.

We feel confident that there is among those in charge an increasing inquiry as to methods and as to the way of promoting the best interests of these classes, and of the county and the State to which they belong.

The Passaic county almshouse has a part of it appropriated for asylum purposes. Both it and the almshouse are under one management. The building is well located, and kept in excellent order. All acute cases in the asylum part are sent to the State Asylum. Some questions of more accurate division between the pauper and deranged classes need to be considered. There were thirty-six inmates in the asylum division.

The jail of Passaic county has some of the advantages of newlyconstructed buildings, and was, for the most part, in satisfactory sanitary condition. There was so much to complain of in the promiscuous mingling of small boys with those older in years and in crime that the Secretary of the Board called the attention of the proper court thereto.

In Salem county, the jail had only one inmate, and was, as usual, in good sanitary condition, except that objection, as before, was made to a form of closet in use, and to an inadequate and illy-arranged cesspool method of delivery.

The condition of the almshouse and asylum, as to which previous complaint was made, had been slightly but inadequately improved. Although neither is very large, it continues to illustrate an imperfect system as to the care of paupers and some of the worst features of county insane asylums. The asylum was found to be a system of cell confinement in unskilled hands. The only relief to a sense of sadness mingled with disapproval, was to be found in the fact that the committee whom we met expressed their concurrence in the criticisms and assured the Board that there should be no delay in seeking and effecting important changes. The following communication shows how well they have fulfilled their trust:

"E. M. Hunt, M. D.:

"SALEM, N. J., December 6th, 1883.

"DEAR SIR-Your favor of late date to Jos. W. Cooper was handed to me for reply. I have not a copy of your suggestions at hand to answer in rotation, but would say that we have had a number of them carried out.

"The filthy water-closet in the insane department has been thoroughly repaired, and a ventilator carried from the closet and soil-pipe to the chimney. The soil-pipe leading from the building to the stream below has been taken out, and was found to be entirely closed up, nothing having passed through it for a number of years.

"All deposits from the closet have been running along the cellar wall, under it, and into the cellar. This pipe has all been taken out and a cesspool dug in the yard and properly walled and covered up. "The cellar under the asylum has been thoroughly cleaned up, all filth and rubbish removed and the walls whitewashed. There is now nothing in the cellar but coal.

"The old man with a sore leg has been moved to the top of the building, where he has a good room, with plenty of light and air, much to the comfort of himself and the other inmates. The old colored man has been removed by death.

"Zine has been put on the floors of a number of the cells. The old zine was found to be in a very filthy condition. The old commodes have been replaced with new ones, and the slab bedsteads for insane persons on the floor, that you proposed, have been put in. We find they are just the thing needed. Straw beds are put in at night and taken out in the morning. Patients (some of whom had not been on a bed for years) all occupy them every night. Iron doors (grating), with locks on them, have been put in all the cells, so that, if necessary, they can be locked up and yet have a good circulation of air. Also one of the difficulties of keeping the female inmates more private is now overcome. There has been a woman in charge of the insane department for some time, and now everything is kept in much better condition.

"During the warm weather the patients were taken out into the yard (particularly the females) and allowed to stay most of the day. At first they did not want to go, but after awhile they looked for it. I think it was very beneficial to them.

"The pavement around the side door, that you spoke of, has been taken up and a good brick pavement put there.

"The insane department is not yet what we should like to have it, but we have done the best we could with the means at our disposal, so that there is now a very great change in its condition from last spring when you was there.

"The almshouse has also received a share of attention. The watersupply has been improved very much. The spring on the opposite side of the yard has been enlarged and a wind-pump erected that

forces the water to the tanks on the fourth floor. The water-supply is now all that can be asked. The tanks and the room in which they stand have been cleaned, and the tanks have been partitioned off, so that they now stand in a room by themselves, well lighted and ventilated.

"A new range has been put in the kitchen; also a circulating boiler, holding 100 gallons, thus providing plenty of hot water for all purposes. The bath-rooms have both hot and cold water and plenty of it. The quality of the water is good and the quantity all that could be desired. During the dry days of August and September water was plenty. The old gutter from the kitchen to the stream below has been relaid with flat stones and bricks, so that the refuse is all carried off. The stream itself has been cleaned out.

"The out-houses are cleaned every month, and the hogs are not now allowed access to them. And the yards adjoining the houses have not been overlooked. There are other points about the institution that need attention, but the present Board did not feel authorized to lay out any more money just now. We have left them for the next Board. "It is just here I would call your especial attention, and through you, the attention of the Governor and Legislature, to the manner of conducting the affairs of the almshouse in our county. We are under a special law, which regulates our system of electing almshouse trustees. They are elected for one year only, and when the Board of Freeholders changes, as it often does, they change the trustees of the almshouse, and then a Board of entirely new men comes in at one time, and it is a year before they learn the wants of the institution. Just when they find out what is needed, they have to give way to another new Board. They should be elected for three years, and part of them go out at a time, so that all should not be inexperienced.

"We find it difficult to carry out your suggestion of getting proper persons to take charge of the insane department, as people capable of doing that kind of business do not want to live in an institution like ours. "I inclose you a copy of the law and regulations governing the

almshouse.

"Yours respectfully, "CHAS. W. CASPER."

We have thus far noticed only those counties in which there are both jails, almshouses and asylums. It has been impossible to visit all the various township and city almshouses, but we have collected some facts as to the modes of dealing with the dependent classes in various localities and as to the causes of pauperism. It is very desirable that the State should more and more realize that it has a direct relationship to the preservation of the people not only from the taxation and expense which dependency causes, but from those greater evils which result from institutional defects. The work already done has been of great service, but much remains to be done.

SCHOOL HYGIENE.

BY JAMES GREEN, PRINCIPAL OF HIGH SCHOOL, LONG BRANCH.

It is not my purpose to attempt to deal solely with the abstract principles of hygiene. If I can but add numerical emphasis to the energetic plans already put in motion, and furnish a little encouragement by the assurance that here is one more who purposes henceforth to fight in this line, I shall feel that I have accomplished all I could expect.

Hygiene is that branch of science which treats of the principles and laws for the preservation of health.

School hygiene involves as much of these laws and principles as are contingent upon the child's attending school. This branch of hygiene is not bounded by the school premises but extends to the domicile of the child in a certain sense it covers his school-day life. It therefore follows that, while school authorities can only be held entirely responsible for that over which they have absolute control, they are in part responsible for the child's home-life, responsible for so much of it as they may regulate by reaching out with their influence into the home-circle.

statement at once.

The laws of hygiene are not alone physiological, but they are also metaphysical in their nature. If we are materialists, we accept this If we are realists, while we pause at the nature of the mysterious chord that unites mind and body, observation teaches us that their union is so complete that whatever depresses the one debilitates the other, and whatever exhilerates the one rejuvenates the other. It therefore appears that methods of teaching have as much to do with the health of the pupil as systems of ventilation, modes of carriage, diet, and physical exercise.

It behooves us, first, to glance at the evils to be guarded against or overcome in the school room; next, to consider the best means of accomplishing these ends.